


Garden in the Sky

by midnightdiddle (gooseberry)



Category: Shadow of the Colossus
Genre: Age Difference, Childhood, F/M, Gen, Isolation, Post-Canon, Rebirth, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-04
Updated: 2008-09-04
Packaged: 2019-02-01 04:51:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12697737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseberry/pseuds/midnightdiddle
Summary: And the baby, strange little thing with horns, isn't him. And she can't name something she doesn't understand."You," she says to it, when it's cradled in her arms, nestled against her body, "are a strange little thing, aren't you?" The baby cries, and sometimes, when the sun is overhead, and the grass is warm, the baby laughs, and she holds it close, away from the edge that falls to the broken bridge."You," she says to it, "are a sad little thing, aren't you?"--She's a lonely thing, and he's a sad thing, and together they live in a garden in the sky.  Post-game, Mono/growing-up!Wander.





	Garden in the Sky

For the first few years, she lives in the garden, where she can see the crumbled remains of the bridge far below. She sits in the grass, holds a strange little horned baby in her lap, and watches the sun rise and set, rise and set, in the lonely, quiet land.

She doesn't name the baby. She doesn't know what she should name it. It's not him, not really, because he, when she remembers, was taller than her, broader, standing on the other side of the fire. He, she remembers, had stood past the ring of smoke when the village had held a cup to her lips, and he, she remembers, had touched her once, when she felt little and cold and frightened, a bitter taste on her mouth and lips. And the baby, strange little thing with horns, isn't him. And she can't name something she doesn't understand.

"You," she says to it, when it's cradled in her arms, nestled against her body, "are a strange little thing, aren't you?" The baby cries, and sometimes, when the sun is overhead, and the grass is warm, the baby laughs, and she holds it close, away from the edge that falls to the broken bridge.

"You," she says to it, "are a sad little thing, aren't you?"

x

The child's voice is high, bright-pitched like sunlight, and when the child runs, a shivering of the grass in the garden, she wonders if they should leave. There's no way north, and to the south, she can see a ridge of mountains. East is cut off by the same mountains, curving northward, and west is a desert. But below (and down so many long steps, holding the child's hand tightly, child between her and the wall, away from the long, steep drop to the dry little fountain), there's the temple, long, stone halls that are being slowly taken over by moss, now that their god is sealed.

"You," she calls, when the child strays near the steps leading south. The child wavers on the steps, edge of sunlight, and when she touches its head, rests her hand on sun-warmed hair, the child looks up, says, "Mono."

"Don't stray," she says, and the child stays close, a handswidth between them, a line of sunlight and shadow.

x

As the child grows, they start to stray from the temple, moving first west, then south. There's a marsh where they can catch frogs and turtles, and they find a slow moving river with fish. When the child's scratching in the dirt, she climbs the cliff-face, fetches bird eggs from dry nests. She shows the child how to gather grasses and vines, twist together ropes to snare and catch and hold. The child's hands are small but nimble, and when they follow the slow descent north to the salt-water below the temple, they fish out mollusks from the wide, shallow reefs.

"Mono," the child says, when they're walking down the beach, footprints slowly fading beneath the water. "Mono, the water--"

"Don't stray," she says, and when the child holds out a handful of shells, covered in grimy sand, she pets the child's cheeks, kisses its forehead, and says, "Yuu is a good boy."  
  
x

He grows up. She watches him grow, and when they walk near the water, she catches a flash of herself in the surface, tired and older, not the girl she was when the village kissed her hands, pressed a clay cup against her lips. And he's not the boy she had known, the boy who had raced the other boys and leapt from cliffs and laughed with the wind catching his voice. He's not the boy she knew before, whose name she's forgotten. He's something new, a man-boy-child who looks the same but has a different name, one she won't forget.

When night comes, she sits by his side and watches him sleep, and when he cries in his dreams (and what does he have to dream of, dried fountains and shivering grass and bridges crumbling before he can walk), she touches him, pulls him close, cradles him to her breast.

"Mono," he cries, and grows to press his mouth to hers in a kiss. His body is taller than hers, broader, and his hands, when he touches her skin, are rough, cut by the cliffs and the sand and the sun-warmed stones of the temple. She kisses his mouth, and takes his hands, and when they walk, she watches their shadows spread over the sand.

x

It's so many long steps upwards, and the garden, drenched in sunlight, is so much the same. She stands in the grass, him beside her, and when the sun is spinning overhead, starting its fall downwards, she reaches up, curls her arms about him. She pets his cheeks, and kisses his mouth, and when he kisses her back, she falls backwards, and carries him down with her.

She lies in the grass, him above and beside her, and when his hands press against her skin, she looks northward, to where the bridge lies in ruins. She kisses his fingertips, lets him kiss the angle of her bones, and when he's sleeping, restless and with broken sighs, she sits in the grass, and watches him.

They stay near the garden, near the temple, and when, months later, a child in her stomach stirs, she leans upon the broken columns of the garden, and lets him kiss the curve of her neck, where her hair catches long.

"Yuu is a strange little thing," she says, and he sits with her in the grass, cradles her against his body as she cradles her stomach. "Such a strange, sad little thing," she says, and she doesn't know who she's speaking of, him or the strange little thing growing in her, because Yuu is the only name she knows, the only one she remembers, and this land is such a quiet, lonely land.


End file.
